Picton to Motueka

---

Up again for the free breakfast. Maybe we are turning into real backpackers. They always seem to be looking for freebies. We repack and are out of our room at the 10:00 am checkout time. We walk into Picton, which is two blocks away. Michael tries to hook the laptop into an internet café connection but the connection is bad so he has to wait until we get to Motueka to check up on his fantasy football. We stop and have a sandwich then go back to The Villas to be transported to the bus stop at the ferry terminal.
The landscape on the way to Nelson is quite different from anything we have seen in NZ so far. It is much drier in this area of the country and the hillsides are less lush. As we get close to Nelson we notice much nicer homes that are actually architecturally interesting. This is definitely an upper income area. We have about one hour in Nelson before our bus comes to take us to Motueka. I decide to take a short walk to see if I can find an ice cream. I really like the town of Nelson and tell Michael so when I return to the transport center. He takes a short walk to see what Nelson is like. Upon his return we decide that we will come back after Abel Tasman and spend a day here.
The ride to Motueka is only about one hour, most of which is along a beach road. The driver drops us right at the door of our motel, The Avalon. It is probably the nicest we have had in NZ. We have a huge room with queen bed, pullout sofa, kitchen with small table and bathroom. Michael and I walk a few blocks to the city center. There is a different type of grocery store and I want to go in to see what they have. We are immediately drawn to a shelf area labeled “Mexican”. They have items from Old El Paso, which is not something I would buy in The States but it looks pretty good here. I think it would be nice to make tacos at the motel tonight and Michael agrees. We buy what we need and go back to the motel.
Michael has seen an internet café where he can plug in the laptop. We need to do some banking and of course, Michael needs to check on fantasy football. I stay at the motel to look at travel brochures for our stay in Nelson.
I make tacos for dinner and they are not great but they taste good to us. Then Michael goes to the office to check out the free movies. We spend the rest of the evening watching Finding Neverland. This is the first time it has felt like home since we have been here. Maybe we could just move in to this motel?

---